Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

= ria hind her. ‘ Come on: Alice’s unexpected onslaught threw Har- per off his balance and sent him staggering backward. Her slim arms, tightening about his neck, were choking him. He continued to clutch his guns, and for that reason could not use his fingers to wrench her arms away from his neck, but he had no thought of firing the weapons. Seeing his predicament, the mob surged into the office and piled up on Harper, forcing him down on the floor. Alice released him as the others grabbed him, and darted for a key that was hanging on a nail. As the sheriff and his assailants engaged in a desperate conflict on the floor, rolling over and over, upsetting chairs and tables, one of his guns was kicked out of his hands and clattered across the floor. Alice grabbed it. He retained the other and could undoubt- edly have used it to deadly effect had he chosen. But even in the extremity of his struggle against overwhelming odds, his first thought was for Alice. He could not see whom he was fighting. For all he knew, she was one of the many who were over- powering him, and on that account he re- frained from firing. He even withdrew his finger from the trigger, lest the weapon should go off accidentally. He managed to get his right hand, which held it, under- neath his body, and on his knees like a wrestler with half a dozen men on top of him, he ceased struggling for a moment in preparation for another effort to throw off his assailants. Meanwhile Alice, with the key, rushed to the cell door. The prisoner, of course, was awake. ‘ith the first appearance of the mob, Allan had crumpled in his cell as dreadful thoughts of lynchers came to his mind: then, as he saw Alice through the bars, he realized that the mob meant to free, not lynch him, and he stood palpitating at the cell door and yelling encouragement to Alice and her followers. She unlocked the door and thrust the pistol she had picked up into her husband’s hand. ‘ Run!” she cried. “Get into the bush outside the town and then make for the mountams.” top of him, Harper ca’ gh to a supreme effort. Since nis p was free, he was able to jam the g his holster. That enabled him tc od right hand. With a prodigious ett heaved to his feet and struck out with & hands, working toward the door as he aid: Only one thought was in his mind no’ to recapture the prisoner whom he had seen escaping. He fought his way out, flung off his last enemy, and, seeing Allan dash- ing for the near-by trees that fringed a creek, he made after him at top speed. Meanwhile an unexpected development had been taking place outside the jail. Many of the mob had been unable to get inside Harper’s office, and others probably retained sense enough to keep out, and these had set fire to the building, doubtless with the idea of freeing the prisoner by that most desperate of atl methods should their other efforts fail, The fact that they might in- cinerate Allan in the process had evidently not occurred to them. With Harper gone, the men inside the structure came tumbling out, Alice along with them, and so surprised and delighted were they by the blood-tingling sight of a building aflame that they were diverted from their purpose of pursuing the sheriff. The blaze was rapidly gaining headway. Red ribbons of flame were darting higher and higher, licking at the black sky like the fiery tongues of monsters from the in- ferno, lighting up the faces of men whose Passions were as uncontrolled as the flames. The fire crackled, spat, and cannonaded, as it gnawed at the dry board structure. Its fury seemed to add to the triumphant frenzy of the men who had been intoxicated with liquor, to begin with. They were be- side themselves now. All thought of the escaped prisoner seemed to vanish. They had accomplished what they set out to do, and now they would celebrate their triumph. _ Their wild shouts, like those of Indians on the war path, rang out above the fierce ac- companiment of the roaring flames. The danced and flung hats into the air. in